Northern Territory courts a revolving door for evil men
Most of August’s criminal roll call in the Northern Territory Supreme Court contained scenes of such graphic violence they might have attracted a warning, were they not so depressingly mundane: adult Aboriginal men inflicting extreme violence on Aboriginal women.
Most of August’s criminal roll call, like the month before it and every month going back decades, also contained scenes of such graphic violence they might too have attracted a warning were they not so depressingly mundane: adult Aboriginal men inflicting extreme violence on Aboriginal women.
As the Northern Territory welcomes in a new government that has promised to get tough on crime, the focus is on urban Aboriginal youths – the gangs of crims breaking through shop windows, stealing cars and threatening with weapons.
The Country Liberals promise to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 to make kids answer for the over-size damage they cause, to reintroduce spithoods and to reinstate truancy officers to make sure Aboriginal kids attend school.
It raises questions about a more problematic cohort: Aboriginal men aged in their 20s, 30s and 40s, who were kids not so long ago, now being told by judges they are beyond repair as worthwhile members of society.
Perhaps new Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro understands this, which is why she’s focused on youth crime. It’s a case of saving what you can. But the recidivist nature of adult Aboriginal offending and the extreme violence, usually fired by alcohol, creates each new generation of lost children.
These men bash and maim repeatedly. They have long records. Spells in prison are not correcting them. They have kids and those kids are charting the same course.In the Territory courts, where there is a swinging door of repeat offenders, there is a sense that help cannot come soon enough but, even if it did, it would make no difference anyway. Chief Justice Grant said he needed to apply a value of deterrence when sentencing dog sadist Adam Britton to 10 years and five months in prison, with a non-parole period of six years.
But it’s not as if the public needs to be reminded not to rape and kill dogs. As for telling Aboriginal men not to harm women and children, judges have been yelling into that void for decades.John Nelson, 44, from Yuendumu, faced sentencing in August for striking a female relative in the head with a machete in Alice Springs in 2022, resulting in the woman’s skull being fractured.
Chief Justice Grant considered Nelson “a recidivist offender and a man of extremely poor character” whose prospects of rehabilitation were “practically non-existent”. Nelson went on to assault another female with a weapon while on bail for the machete attack.
Nelson’s history of criminality included six prior convictions of aggravated assaults on females, multiple convictions for assaulting police, deprivation of liberty, threatening behaviour, disorderly behaviour, unlawful entry, stealing and sexual intercourse with a child under 16.
In August, the Chief Justice also sentenced Lazarus Green, 25, another Aboriginal man whose prospects of rehabilitation the judge said “must be seen as marginal at best”.
Green’s partner was taken by ambulance to hospital with a fracture to her right forearm, a deep laceration to her head and multiple blunt force injuries to the back, arms and legs after suffering sustained and brutal beating with a heavy stick. The attack came on top of Green’s “appalling criminal history dating back 10 years” including multiple convictions for aggravated assaults on females, breaching domestic violence orders, unlawful entry, property damage and stealing.
Green’s parents both did repeated spells in prison when he was growing up in an itinerant lifestyle, moving about the communities and town camps of central Australia. He became a polysubstance abuser and welfare had trouble finding anyone who could take responsibility for him. Green has never had a job.
Herron Nawirridj, aged 30, was out on bail for belting his partner with an “animal bone” in the top end community of Gunbalanya when he followed that up with a sustained pummelling to the same woman in October last year.
Both were intoxicated and arguing when Nawirridj followed her into Uncle Sam’s 24/7 takeaway in Darwin. She tried to stop him entering the store. He pulled off her shirt and dragged her by the hair outside. He choked her until she was unconscious and fell to the ground. He stomped on her head four times.
Dead or dead drunk father, dead or drunk or disconnected mother, barely educated, wandering childhoods, substance abusers since teenagers, disregard for bail, disregard for jail, capable of committing extreme violence on women and each becoming fathers themselves during short-lived times of freedom.
Nawirridj has a four-year-old daughter. Green has three very young children to two partners. Nelson has three daughters of varying ages from three partners. They are fathers by paternity, not deed.https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/northern-territory-courts-a-revolving-do...
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